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With the release of ES-6 and TWIST-9 (since build e60t90.9707), we introduced a new licensing mechanism that lifts the licensing burden off your shoulders.
We named this feature: "Automated Licensing". Because once installed, you can forget about your license, no matter the changes, renewals or extensions.
Connecting your computer to the internet may be unsettling without a full grasp of the mechanism involved.
This documentation is here to elaborate on the advantages of automated licensing and to give you a good insight into the system.
Why apply for automated licensing?
Problem statement
Our previous product releases were designed for perpetual licensing:
- Choose your product options
- Pay license costs upfront
- Get a protection key that works on a single machine for an unlimited period of time
- Pay maintenance costs to access updates
You only had to consider a license if you were migrating to a new machine.
Then subscription contracts overtook the software industry. They simplified our finances and increased our flexibility.
However, our products needed to adapt to carry out the same advantages and simplify required operations.
Advantages
Automatic renewal or extension
Cease to stop your production for licensing purposes.Renewals or extensions can be problematic if not done soon enough. This is no longer an issue with automated licensing, as they are automatically made within 24 hours and without downtime.
Enjoy your vacations without any worries about license installation. With automated licensing, your license will be taken care of automatically, ensuring uninterrupted workflow without the need for manual intervention.
Temporary options
Subscribe temporarily at any time without fear.
Have you ever wanted to order additional Render engines or HardWorkers to support temporary production spikes? You can now plan your subscription start and duration without thinking about licensing.
License transfers
Take control of your install location.
Quickly migrate software without waiting for an LTA validation. Simply declare your new host, agree to our terms online and install the product in its new location.
Cluster distributions
Break down your installation with agility.
Redistribute the load over your servers with great flexibility without having to worry about the license. Declare the amount of HardWorkers or Render engines and let the magic happen.
Contract integration
One less thing to think about.
Your license will automatically follow your orders, with no more missing options or unsynchronised expirations. Everything is kept in line, and your contract is now the only thing you need to worry about.
Reporting and alerts
Avoid back-and-forth communications.
Get a consistent overview of your on-site installations and distributions. With reporting your license health and renewals, get notified when something is wrong.
How does it work?
Architecture
Remote servers are handling license renewals. Robustness is achieved with simplicity and separation of concerns.
Renewal process
With a single request and nothing more than the license file, our software will renew its license.
License slippage
No matter the current license expiration, our products request a new license every 24 hours (configurable).
The delivered license is then valid for 35 days.
Alerts
In the occurrence of an issue, you may be notified for various reasons:
- License expires in 10 days (notified by on-premise product)
- License expires in 15 days (notified by DALIM)
- Host detected offline (notified by DALIM)
- License renewal failed (notified by DALIM)
- Contract is almost at its end (notified by DALIM)
Restricted internet connection
Your company security policy may restrict any outgoing accesses.
In that case, we provide a set of public IPs for your security teams to allow as outgoing targets for HTTPS requests.
What personal information is shared?
Besides the license file, additional data collected during the process is very light:
- Public IP used for the request
- Machine hostname
- Machine hostid
This information is stored alongside your license in the remote license server database.
It is used for the sole purpose of retrospective analysis in case of a problem, and only qualified and authorised DALIM employees can access this information.